From Columbine to Newtown, Michigan’s efforts to reform its handgun laws have been overshadowed by tragedy.

Nearly 14 years ago, one day after two armed teens killed 12 students and a teacher in Colorado’s Columbine High School, Michigan lawmakers introduced a bill to make it easier to carry concealed handguns in the state.

It was April 21, 1999, and the nation was still reeling from the largest mass shooting on a school campus in more than 30 years. The bill would take 18 months to pass, on Dec. 13, 2000, in the Legislature’s waning lame-duck days.

Among the provisions added to get the necessary support for approval: "Gun-free zones" - such as schools, churches and other places - were created where hidden firearms were forbidden.

Fast-forward to today.

Just hours after Michigan lawmakers passed new reforms to allow concealed guns in the zones, 20 children and six teachers were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut by a young man with an assault rifle and two handguns.

State Sen. Mike Green, then a state representative, remembers the day of the Columbine massacre, and the impact on the concealed weapons reforms he sponsored in 1999.

“When we were ready to announce this, the shootings happened at that school in Colorado, Columbine. The … very … day. We’re having a press conference (the next) morning to let everyone know that was the day we were going to start the process, and that happened,” said Green, R-Mayville, in an interview last year on the law’s 10-year anniversary.

“That caused a lot of questions among our caucus. Is today the day? Should we do it or should we just stop? We decided that, look, this doesn’t have anything to do with Columbine. This is something that we believe is right, it was proven out in many states, and so we … proceeded with it and did finally pass it out of the House.”

"I can't guess what he’s going to do,” Green said Monday morning. “We put a lot of things in there that he wanted and if he doesn’t sign it there’s going to be a lot of people upset.”

Late Thursday and early Friday, state lawmakers in a marathon end-of-the-year session, approved Senate Bill 59, introduced by Green 23 months earlier.

Larry Pratt, executive director of Gun Owners of America, praised the Michigan legislation and said armed teachers or parents in the Newtown school might have been able to mitigate the tragedy.

“In the last 20 years, when we had a mass murder, which is defined as five people or more, it’s been in a gun-free zone. Do you think there is a lesson we can draw from that?”

The current legislation went through significant changes. At first it would have moved concealed pistol licensing from county gun boards to the Secretary of State. After that ran into opposition, discussion turned toward letting permit seekers apply in any county they wished, to avoid those where approvals took many months.

The final version was the product of negotiation with county clerks, university leaders, gun-rights groups, the governor’s office and others.

Not only would concealed handguns be allowed in places now banned, but the licensing process would have to be faster and more uniform statewide. Local gun boards, in place since 1927, would cease to exist. Sheriffs would have control over permit approvals.

The seemingly contrary but legal option of “open carry” in gun-free zones – where a permit holder could outwardly wear a handgun, but not one hidden discreetly - would no longer exist, a measure Green said Snyder specifically sought. Those who wish to wear concealed weapons in the zones would need more classroom training, and more firing-range instruction.

Immediately after the Newtown shootings, groups including the Michigan Education Association and Progress Michigan called for a veto by the governor. Today the Michigan Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, representing 1,500 doctors, also called for a veto, as did state and national leaders of the American Federation of Teachers, with 1.5 million members.

But some early critics were won over, or stepped out of the fight.

A group representing university presidents chose to stay neutral after language was inserted making it clear public universities could choose to keep their campuses gun free.

Despite the prohibition against outwardly wearing firearms in gun-free zones, Michigan Open Carry Inc. endorsed the bill last week. And the Michigan Association of County Clerks – whose members were part of the gun boards and still would be charged with processing permit applications - supported their role, but did not take a position on the bill overall.

“It has a lot of folks’ fingerprints on it,” said Ryan Mitchell, an aide to Green who helped with the effort. “At the end of the day it may not be what everyone wants, it was not what my boss originally wanted, but it is better for everybody.

“I think politically and practically we accomplished a lot with this,” Mitchell said.